


Only One

by brightwhiteparabolas



Series: Alfred Pennyworth's Bookmarks (All Rights Reserved by the T. and M. Wayne Foundation) [8]
Category: Batman (Comics), Robin: Son of Batman (Comics), Super Sons (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bats, Bruce Wayne is a Good Parent, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Minimal Editing We Die Like Grownups, Superpowers, Teen Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-10
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22616881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightwhiteparabolas/pseuds/brightwhiteparabolas
Summary: Goliath the dragon bat is a teenager now, and suffering through a painful identity crisis. On the night that he goes missing, Damian Wayne calls another teenager to help find him.Warnings for depression and implied suicidality.
Relationships: Jonathan Samuel Kent & Damian Wayne
Series: Alfred Pennyworth's Bookmarks (All Rights Reserved by the T. and M. Wayne Foundation) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557265
Comments: 3
Kudos: 19





	Only One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lalill](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lalill/gifts).



> Alfred says: I will allow this just for once. It is mildly suggestive. It is furthermore exploitative to depict a minor and a close friend of my employer's son in tears at the top of a very tall building.
> 
> parabolas says: Alfred, no-one reads what I write. Do not worry.  
> (Also, I thought maybe this could be a prequel for Lalill's 'Boy of Steel' before Jon cheered up, stopped freaking out so much about being a hormonal teenager, and decided to do something more positive about it.)

**1**

It was dark when the cell phone under Jon’s pillow ran, jerking him out of an uneasy dream in which Damian had been aiming Batarangs between his paralyzed fingers.

He snatched the phone up and pushed it against his ear. He didn't need to do that, but it was good to do what normal people did.

“Come _now_.”

“Come?” said Jon. He was old enough to have some fleeting, inappropriate thoughts, and he was still muddled with sleep.“Where?”

“Manor. _Now_.”

“I hate it when you do this.”

Damian had already ended the call, and Jon was reaching for the cape that hung over the back of his chair. He looked around his messy room. Luckily, he had finished all of his homework three hours ago.

It hadn't been easy lately. Jon was one of the most well-liked boys in his class, but he had begun to wonder whether his never-ending niceness was just a gigantic cover-up. From his family's point of view, that would make total sense. Now that he was growing up, he had to be more careful than ever that no-one knew what he was. His body was changing. Weird things were going to happen, his father had said. Weird things were already happening. And, as he had some of Mom's genes as well as Dad's, not everything could be predicted. Whenever he thought about it, it gave him a grinding headache. He couldn't say anything, or they would send him straight to the school nurse and Dad was scared silly every time any medical professional went near him.

**2**

“Goliath is the last of his kind,” said Bruce Wayne to his son.“It’s not easy for him.”

“He has me,” said Damian, who looked terrible. He was still wearing street clothes, which meant that unlike his father he had never even tried to go to bed. The black hood of his Gotham Knights sweatshirt was pulled up over his head.

Jon said nothing, and bit his lip.He placed a hand on Damian’s lower arm.Much to his surprise, it was not pushed away.

“Where do you think he is?” Jon asked.

They were walking to the east wing of the house, which had been refurbished two years ago to better accommodate Goliath, Damian’s enormous dragon bat.Walls had been knocked away and plasterboard stripped to let the air press through the Manor’s outer layers, creating a high-ceilinged, open space full of stones and sand.It was as much like the cave in Bialya where Goliath had come from as Damian could make it.

Jon had always had a soft soft for Goliath.He could accelerate more quickly than the dragon bat, but Goliath could displace enough air to knock down small bushes, and they both knew what it was like to hang high above a sunny river before banking suddenly to avoid stray clouds. Tonight was different. The wall at back of Goliath’s cave was splashed with black paint covered in white claw markings.Beneath it was scattered pile of bones.Jon was surprised.Goliath usually cleaned up after himself.

“He’s been depressed for some time now,” said Damian.“He gave himself another nose piercing, and I didn't say anything. I let him stay in here by himself too much. That's why I didn't realize he was gone until this evening.”

“He’s a teenager now,” said Bruce Wayne. He had one of his hands on Damian’s shoulder.“There’s only so much he has in common with the bats in the Batcave.”

He leaned down and pulled something from between the bones, so deftly that only Jon saw him do it. Super-vision hurt sometimes. Jon saw so many things by accident that he would rather not have seen at all. This one was a piece of paper with sad, scratched hieroglyphics on it, and it disappeared straight into the pocket of Bruce Wayne's dark red dressing gown.

“Poor Goliath,” said Damian in such a soft voice that Jon hardly hear him.He saw a fat tear roll off the edge of Damian’s nose.

Jon said nothing. He bit his lower lip again, and Bruce looked at him. The lines on Bruce's face were very deep. He was about the same age as Jon's father, but seemed much older tonight.

“Think,” said Bruce. His hand was back on Damian's shoulder. “There are very few high places in Gotham City that a creature of Goliath’s size could hide without being seen.  You boys can work it out yourselves. We should hurry."

"I'll go up to him," said Damian.

Bruce shook his head.The expression on his face was remote, but his eyes were on Jon.

“No,” he said to Damian.“Only Grayson could manage up there without wings."

**3**

The wind between the back of the Clock Tower and the West Spires complex was terrible.

“Big G?” Jon called, but the wind took his voice away and twisted it into the sound of ghosts and Darkseid's distant laughter.“Goliath?”

There was no answer, and Jon slid one foot around a stone pillar.He saw a broad red back resting against a wall.Goliath was calm and unresponsive. He was standing on a ledge, toes curled around the line where it ended, as if he was waiting for a signal from the city below.

“Are you okay?”

Jon decided to sit down on the flat surface of the ledge and work himself round to where Goliath stood. It was beginning to rain and he didn’t feel like flying. Parts of Gotham were so old, he thought, that they looked like they could crumble away like the burned edges of a sponge cake. At least there were no gargoyles here, just these weird, twisted pillars like decrepit candy canes. Batman was right. It was the only logical place for Goliath to hide.

Jon started talking, like he often did when he was nervous.

“We're worried about you. Damian loves you.He misses you.”

He stopped, and said: "We're sad because we think you're sad."

He stopped again, and thought about the note whose contents he was not supposed to have seen. He slid a bit further along the ledge.

“I don’t know what you think about, butI’m also the only one.I can’t go to the doctor because they’ll find out.” He laughed. “Even my dad says there’s things he doesn’t understand about me. My clothes try to come off by themselves sometimes.  I don’t know if I’m into boys or girls. Stuff sometimes breaks by itself when I touch it. I see things I don't want to see. I’m a half-alien teenager.There’s nothing like me on earth either." He laughed again, but it wasn't laughter.

Then the ledge beneath him broke off, and he was sitting on air.A hairy, red arm reached out and grabbed him. He heard a deep voice in his head.

“I didn’t need to do that, but what the fuck.”

Something in Jon snapped.

“It sucks,” Jon yelled into the wind.“Superpowers suck.Being different sucks.Why can’t we be like everyone else?”

Goliath sighed, and folded his massive arms across his chest.Jon sat on the safe part of the ledge with his face almost against Goliath’s calves.They sat there in silence for about five minutes with the light rain moving across their faces.Jon listened to Goliath’s breathing and listened to his own breathing, and tried to breathe more slowly. Goliath's hand touched the side of his face. Maybe it was an accident. Goliath's hand felt soft, and Jon knew that the hand would feel how wet his face was, not just from the rain.

He heard the deep voice in his head again and marveled. Maybe there were some aspects of having superpowers that didn’t come with terrible responsibilities or awful sexual side effects, at least during puberty.

“Jonathan Kent, you need to kick that kid of mine sometimes.”

“Yeah, easier said than done."

“You know he really likes you, right?”

Goliath looked down at him again from his great height.The dragon bat’s face was almost condescending.

“I mean, in _that_ kind of way.”

Jon looked into the depthless yellow eyes, and wondered about the slaughter in Bialya. He wondered about his father's planet that no longer existed and where he might not have fitted in. He touched the dragon bat's leg. He didn't want to talk about Damian. It was too much right now. He took a deep breath. He sounded less shaky to himself, and the world was waiting.

"Are we ready to go down yet?"

The dragon bat tilted his shaggy head back into the sky.

"A few more minutes," he said. "Call my kid and tell him we'll be fine."


End file.
